ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Yongzheng Emperor and the images of agrarian labor he patronized. Beginning with a discussion of Yongzheng’s rocky transition to the throne, the chapter narrates the intense competition he endured with other siblings. The future Yongzheng emperor used the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving as part of his campaign to secure his emperorship. In an unusual turn of events, he situated portraits of himself and the members of his family into the scenes as the farmers and weavers who were hard at work harvesting rice and producing silk. In addition, he wrote a new suite of poems for the procedures while greatly praising his father’s contributions to governance and agrarian knowledge. Once ensconced on the throne, the Yongzheng emperor’s former familial competitors perished in unnatural deaths, and he commissioned new types of agrarian labor to legitimize his “harmonious and just” reign. In annual public spectacles, Yongzheng took a focused interest in consistently reenacting the Zhou-Era ceremony of “Pushing the Plow” – an event that honored the Divine Agriculturalist, who is also known as Hou Ji, and had the scene commemorated in handscrolls. Together with these representations of activities designed to promote his imperial position, Yongzheng also indulged in paintings of “Auspicious Grains” – celebrations of agrarian abundance – which were painted in the Western mode by the Jesuit court artist Giuseppe Castiglione. Such images served as documentation of the cosmic blessings Yongzheng’s legacy earned. In his public relations as the emperor, Yongzheng sought to profess his exalted position through the use of paintings of agricultural labor and its fruits.
